How to Make an American Quilt by Whitney Otto Read Free Book Online

I’ll bring him ice cream—his favorite, pralines and cream, and he will look up, happy to see me, trusting (no one should be so trusting, I thought), and I will sit on the bed, take his still good hand…no, I will stand at the foot and look him in the eye…no, better to pull up a chair and say something like, ‘James, you and I are so much alike. Foolish and trusting. I always liked you tremendously and I think my sister was fortunate to have you for a husband’—I thought, oh, god, what if he whispers in that difficult way of his that he loves Hy too?—‘but here’s the thing—she isn’t worthy of you. She cannot be trusted not to hurt those who trust her. I know she’s a goddamn “people person,” but maybe all that means is that you see them as some sort of highly evolved pets that you can love or abandon as you desire. She abandoned you, James. We are so joined by her; she abandoned us both.’ ”
    “Jesus, Aunt Glady,” says Finn.
    “I thought, Let the man die enlightened. Let him carry this burden of knowledge beside me. I was crazy, Finn—I would’ve done anything.
    “But when I got to the hospital, with the pralines and cream, I looked in to see Hy curled in bed beside James—they really did adore one another, you know, your grandparents—she was stroking his cheek and whispering, ‘You were always so clean-shaven during our marriage, so properly groomed, but I rather like you like this. So bohemian. I always thought you had the itch to be bohemian.’
    “James’s words were soft because the disease affected his lung and throat muscles. ‘I’m sorry, honey,’ I heard him say.
    “ ‘Don’t be sorry,’ she said. ‘Don’t ever be sorry. It is pointless. I don’t want to talk about regret. I want to tell you how I love you.’ And I got to thinking of something I read somewhere which said that, after everything in our lives—after all we do or say or hope for—all that will be left finally, is love.
    “There I was, eavesdropping in the hall, only partially recovered from what had happened between Hy and Arthur, still a little crazy—but I knew I could not do it. I could not. I came to hate myself for thinking that I could. I came to understand that betrayal cuts both ways. It would not have changed anything and, besides, I thought of what Hy was going through and the loss she was feeling and how I felt when I found out about her and Arthur and the loss I felt. And then there is the matter of blood.
    “I stepped away from the door and walked down the corridor, even though the ice cream was melting. I needed to collect myself. Then I went back to his room, where we all ate from the carton, Hy spooning it into James’s mouth since he could not do it for himself. I thought about family. I thought about forgiveness.”
    Glady Joe asks Finn if they can rest for a moment.
    Sure, she tells her, knowing that she needs to ask about staying with them for the summer, something that she only this moment decided to do. Finds a bench where they can sit.

    A LL THIS HAPPENED two weeks before James Dodd passed away. Before Glady Joe came into the room with the melting ice cream, James said to Hy, “Miss me?”
    “Terribly,” she answered.
    “The hell of it,” he said slowly, with great effort, “is that when you touch me like this, I can’t touch you back. I can feel you but I can’t touch you.” He was exhausted by what he had just said.
    Hy wanted to cry because she knew that what he described was how she would feel about him after he died—that she would live the rest of her life able to feel him, his presence in her life, but not touch him.
    “Do you want me to adjust your feet?” she asked. James nodded.
    “So irritating,” he whispered.
    Then she was startled by the sound of Glady Joe entering the room. Hy thought her sister looked like a woman with a purpose, and was suddenly afraid.
    She watched Glady Joe lean into James to kiss him and receive a kiss. She saw her settle